Cannabis News

The HEMP Embassy Headlines are a selection of recent articles from news services and media sources primarily concerning Cannabis issues, the consequences of prohibition and the challenges for law reform. Here are the selected headlines for this week.

Embassy HEADLINES Issue 320

September 6, 2018

AUSTRALIA & NZ

By our count 12 of the 27 ASX-listed companies involved in the medical cannabis sector have some form of licence to operate in Australia. Medical cannabis licences in Australia have an expiry date of 12 months but so far it appears that none has been forcibly removed from listed companies. Since April only two new cultivation licences have been granted and four manufacturing licences. The reason is the Office of Drug Control. Bod Australia chief operating officer Craig Weller says there is an eight-month back-log as the ODC works through as many as 180 applications. He told Stockhead the ODC had staffed the new medical cannabis section with the expectation of receiving perhaps 18 applications. But although the industry is trying to charge ahead, if it’s customers they’re after they can afford to wait: the Therapeutic Goods Administration has only approved 705 people to use medical cannabis under the Special Access system this year.

“I’ve tried to write an honest account of what it’s like for someone to come from a very un-parliamentary background, into a balance of power position in an Australian Parliament”, Fiona Patten said. “There are many similarities between my old career and my new one – although you are much more likely to be screwed in politics these days than in the sex industry. Machine politics, revenge and religion have turned politics toxic even in the last couple of years”. Read about Fiona Patten’s Track Record on Law Reform of Drug and Other Social Issues.

Please consider making a tax deductible donation to get two or three Reason members elected at the coming election and help secure the socially progressive gains Fiona has made in Victoria and to pursue drug law reform at a parliamentary level. You can donate on the Reason website: https://www.reason.org.au/act_donate

Closing Date 17 October 2018: Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House the Drugs Misuse Act’s objective target was drug-traffickers however over 90% of cannabis arrests are patients, carers and other consumers, adversely impacting health, family, employment, education and travel. Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to address these injustices by amending laws to ensure police stop arresting all cannabis consumers and every adult and child has fast-tracked-access to cannabis.

As researchers from the University of Sydney we are launching an Australia wide online survey of people who have used cannabis for MEDICAL (therapeutic) purposes within the last 12 months. A similar survey was conducted in 2016, and we aim to see how things have changed in that time.

Helen Clark is in support of the Drug Foundation’s stance of a binding cannabis law referendum, as she says the “current policies aren’t working”. On TVNZ1’s Q+A last night, the former Prime Minister told host Corin Dann New Zealand should look to countries that have rolled out successful measures in drug policy area. “I have no doubt that we could do much better.”

NORTH AMERICA

The White House has secretly amassed a committee of federal agencies from across the government to combat public support for marijuana and cast state legalization measures in a negative light, while attempting to portray the drug as a national threat, according to interviews with agency staff and documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The reasons he is considered a hated enemy by the cannabis community are many and varied, including his constant disparagement of marijuana and the people who consume it and his decision in January to rescind the Cole Memo. But being hated by the cannabis community has never caused a serious threat to Sessions’ position as AG. But his involvement – or lack thereof – in the Trump-Russia collusion probe has put Sessions on thin ice with those in power.

Earlier this week, the Senate in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands – a U.S Territory in the Pacific Ocean near Guam – voted 6-0 to legalize marijuana for adult use, including sales and home growing.

Medical cannabis patients in Michigan could soon be able to order their plant medicine online and have it delivered to their doorstep. The Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation would permit licensed deliverers (called provision centers) to bring medical cannabis to the homes of registered patients. Although this might be the first time Michigan residents are hearing of this, it’s not new to state lawmakers.

California legislators are heeding the calls of parents and caregivers of children who use medical cannabis. For years, parents have decried the fact that California law does not permit medical cannabis on or within 1,000 feet of public school grounds. On Monday, state lawmakers moved to change that, approving a bill that would allow parents to administer medical cannabis to their children at school. The bill does set some restrictions on the types of cannabis a parent or guardian can administer. And it would ultimately leave the decision of allowing or banning medical cannabis up to individual school districts.

Police chiefs on Friday lined up against a proposed state rule that critics say would allow unchecked home marijuana deliveries anywhere in California — even in communities that have banned cannabis sales.

While it’s standard procedure across the country for some level of transparency when business interacts with government, Virginia law is treating the cannabis license application process the same as a medical license application, which is exempt from the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. Only original applicants can request a disclosure by the committee — not the general public.

The new harvest notification policy, which takes effect Saturday, is the first of its kind among states that have legalized marijuana and is intended to ensure legally grown Oregon weed isn’t being transported out of state.

The meetings’ purpose: to hear input from community members and stakeholders on the details of cannabis legalization in New York state. Input received will be used by the state-commissioned Regulated Marijuana Workgroup as it drafts legislation for adult-use cannabis legalization to be considered by the state legislature.

A large majority of voters in Wisconsin are in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana, according to a new poll from Marquette Law School. Sixty-one percent of voters said they want marijuana to be “fully legalized and regulated like alcohol,” compared to 36 percent who were opposed.

A combination of police overkill and suspect stupidity led to the sad and avoidable death of a human being, a scenario that has played out countless times in the battle between law enforcement and a plant. The war on marijuana has ruined millions of lives and created an incredible amount of tension between citizens and law enforcement. No one is better off and many people – including Mr. Longenecker – are much worse off because of the government’s futile attempts at stopping cannabis consumption.

Employees at the Pines Thrift Store in Sarasota, Florida, are scratching their heads after someone left nearly 5 pounds of marijuana outside the shop last week. Four bags of vacuum-sealed marijuana turned up inside a tote bag near the clothing drop-off area outside the store.

Canadian cities have no right to limit where medical cannabis can be sold because the storefront sale of the drug is a federal – not a municipal – matter, say lawyers for two dozen illegal marijuana dispensaries that are fighting a City of Vancouver injunction to shut them down.

Investments in plants for processing industrial hemp and pharmaceutical cannabis amounting to at least 255 million euros are currently in progress in Greece, says the director of Cannatec Greece, a company leading the sector.

Local authorities, including Malta’s Medicines Authority, have been praising the new approach to medical cannabis as efficient. However, various media reports are bringing to light a number of discrepancies and structural hurdles that are turning access to medical cannabis into a long and tortuous bureaucratic process.

Lukman, a 29-year-old father of one, provided cannabis oil to patients who were suffering from ailments that were difficult to treat with legal medicines. Lukman did not profit from this, and would provide cannabis oil for free to patients who could not afford it. Despite the lack of financial gain from his endeavour, his offences fall under section 39B of Malaysia’s Dangerous Drugs Act 1952. This stipulates that “Any person who [traffics an illegal drug] shall be guilty of an offence against this Act and shall be punished on conviction with death”.

HEALTH & SCIENCE

Psychosis, a severe mental disorder characterized by a loss of grip on reality, can include unsettling hallucinations and delusions. As no one’s been able to pin down a single cause of psychosis, it’s been even harder to pin down a treatment. But researchers behind a new JAMA Psychiatry study seem to be on the right track. In the study, they report that they’ve found a way to reset the psychosis-afflicted brain using an unlikely plant: marijuana.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have found that one nematode worm, Nippostrongylus brasiliensis, appears to boost its odds of survival by dosing its rodent hosts with endocannabinoids, molecules that are known to reduce inflammation. (The cannabis plant, of course, produces cannabinoids as well.) All the while, the host is releasing its own endocannabinoids, seemingly to dull the pain of the worm’s infiltration, creating a double dose of painkillers in the mouse’s body.

The percentage of daily cannabis users who meet the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) criteria for dependence has fallen significantly over the past decade and a half, according to data published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

This study will be designed to test different combinations of THC and CBD to determine which combination of cannabinoids provides the most relief. However, before the study can begin, they need to gain approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and they need additional funding. The program itself has already received funds from the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, as well as from some federal and state resources and private donors.

Recent research from the Center for BrainHealth® at The University of Texas at Dallas shows that cannabis users experience increased cortical activation during the brain’s resting state when compared with nonusers.

When medical marijuana is taken for chronic nerve pain, it may provide pain relief by reducing connections between the areas of the brain that process emotions and sensory signals, according to a study published in the September 5, 2018, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study looked specifically at radicular pain, a type of nerve pain that radiates from the spine into the legs. Sciatica is a common form of radicular pain.

CULTURE & SOCIETY

In a new analysis of thousands of teeth from ancient skeletons buried at a site near Naples, Italy, archaeologists have discovered that people were using their mouths to help with their work — occupations that likely involved processing hemp into string and fabric.

BUSINESS & POLICY

As the marijuana business grows globally, many stock watchers and research analysts are making predictions about where the most significant investment opportunities are. Investment site The Motley Fool recently published an analysis by Keith Speights of forecasts for the 2022 marijuana market.

Ginkgo Bioworks started in biotech by producing scents for the fragrance industry using engineered yeast to produce the scent chemicals in bulk. Ginkgo’s process is likened to brewing beer. They change the DNA of yeast so that the microorganism will produce the desired chemical in a brewing vessel. For the fragrance industry, they insert the genes for the chemical that makes a rose smell like a rose into the yeast.

OTHER DRUGS

Scroll through The Loop’s Twitter alerts for the season and you’ll see N-Ethylpentylone was one of the most acute issues they faced. N-Ethylpentylone is a substituted cathinone frequently sold as “fake MDMA”, with an appearance and effects that are, initially, broadly similar.

Each year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) makes available to Drug Trends in-depth data on drug-induced deaths in Australia. This year, we have produced a suite of products to summarise trends in opioid-, amphetamine-, and cocaine-induced deaths in Australia from 1997 to 2016.

FUNDRAISERS/CAMPAIGNS

21 June Breaking news! Tony has been released on bail. Tony of Mullaway’s Medical Cannabis has once again been arrested for growing his cannabis medicine! Tony makes cannabis tincture for children with epilepsy and countless others with cancer, chronic pain, ms and the list goes on. Tony Bower has dedicated his life to helping others and now needs your help. All Donations would be greatly appreciated.

Let’s get real about cannabis.The “war on drugs” has been lost. These days, millions of Australians choose to use cannabis and countries all around the world are changing their laws after realising prohibition does more harm than good. It’s high time we joined them and legalised it. That’s why I’m proud to announce today that the Greens are launching our national plan to legalise cannabis for adult use.

September 28th – 30th, 2018, The Chan Centre & Nest, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. “The CHCE is a conference unlike any other- one where thought leaders and practitioners, patients and their families, business entrepreneurs and government officials, cultivators and geneticists come together to explore the endless benefits of Cannabis, other plant/fungi medicines, as well as psychedelics.”

MEDICAN WEEKENDS at the BUSH THEATRE, Nimbin [Hemp Embassy]

The next Medican Workshops will be on the weekend of October 20/21 and then January 19/20, 2019. Entry by donation, beside the river at Nimbin’s Bush Theatre. Starting at 11 am and aiming to finish by 420! Learn how to make and use Cannabis as medicine!

28-30th October 2018 Sydney: CannaTech Sydney will introduce you to some of the brightest minds in cannabis today. We are importing some of Israel’s strongest contributors, welcoming international speakers from all different verticals of the cannabis industry and featuring some of Australia’s best and brightest. CannaTech is happy to have the amazing team at BuddingTech on board with us as we prepare for CannaTech Sydney. We’re creating an incredible live event experience designed to inform, inspire and connect you to the global cannabis industry.

The Key Note speaker at this year’s event is Ed Rosenthal. Businesses, speakers and like-minded individuals will have the opportunity to showcase their products, educate, enlighten and entertain an audience and overall, have a great time meeting lots of different people.

Speaker presentations from the Nimbin Medican Workshop, last weekend 23-24 June 2018, are now online. Big thanks to Disco Sista for documenting the many medican workshops that the Embassy has hosted in Nimbin over the past 3 years. If you’ve missed these amazing gatherings, then you can still watch the speakers online: Click on this link to head to Disco Sista’s Nimbin Medican YouTube Channel.

IF YOU WANT IT: When Phil Bromley moved from Sydney to one of Australia’s most famous and surprisingly largest tourism destinations, Nimbin he felt like he’d found home. Six years on, after observing and experiencing the relentless police harassment and mainstream media victimization of his new hometown, Phil felt it was time to let the town tell their story in their own words. ‘Exposing The War On Drugs’ is an eight part radio documentary series that looks at how the war on drugs has affected Australia and the rest of the world. Broadcast around Australia on the Community Radio Network, from the 18th April and podcast at https://player.whooshkaa.com/shows/exposing-the-war-on-drugs . With the spotlight on Nimbin, Australia’s most famous “alternative” town, the team from NIM FM, (Nimbin’s local community radio station), explore drug prohibition, medicinal cannabis, addiction and Nimbin itself; and offer some solutions to the costly drug war that has raged since the early 1930s.

Entheogenesis Australis (EGA) would like to thank the psychedelic community for it’s ongoing support and attendance at our recent Psychedelic Symposium. Since the event we’ve had a lot of inquiries about obtaining copies of the new EGA Journal 4 and other special merchandise. To browse, please feel free to head to the EGA Shop online or click on the items below. This is also your chance to pick up classic and new T-shirt designs. Please keep in mind much of the stock is very limited so don’t delay!